[Special Feature: How to Understand Populism] Theory and Some Prospects of Left-Wing Populism

2020/02/05

Let us begin by looking back at recent political circumstances. First, there is the rise of "right-wing populism" with xenophobic tendencies in Europe, the United States, and South America, as represented by the 2016 US presidential election, the UK's Brexit referendum, and the Orbán administration in Hungary. Generally speaking, these movements have authoritarian tendencies and have succeeded in garnering support by deploying discourse that treats immigrants as enemies. On the other hand, attention has been focused on the movements of "left-wing populism," which oppose recent neoliberal austerity policies and call for fairer redistribution. Examples include the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Jeremy Corbyn of the British Labour Party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise, Bernie Sanders in the US, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Left-right populism has jumped into the political vacuum created after neoliberalism. In such a situation, for better or worse, there is no doubt that "populism" is a keyword of contemporary politics.

Generally, the term "populism" may evoke images of demagoguery that incites the public by spreading rumors, or right-wing discourse that scapegoats minorities and spreads xenophobic rhetoric. However, as mentioned in the previous examples, the formula "populism = right-wing" is not necessarily accurate. Just as the People's Party, the original populist party that appeared in the United States in the 19th century, populism was originally a force that sided with the vulnerable "people" and opposed elites and vested interests. In that sense, populism is deeply related to left-wing traditions and, furthermore, is completely inseparable from democracy. The force that attempts to position and embrace populism within such a tradition is "left-wing populism."

The theoretical support for the trend of "left-wing populism" comes from Chantal Mouffe, a political theorist from Belgium. The publication of Mouffe's "For a Left Populism" (Akashi Shoten, co-translated by the author, 2019) made waves in the debate surrounding populism. However, left-wing populism also has a prehistory. In this article, before examining left-wing populism theory, I would like to quickly review "agonistic democracy" as its theoretical prehistory. This is because when left-wing populism is discussed in the current political climate, it is accompanied by considerable misunderstanding and lack of comprehension, which I believe is leading to a somewhat confused situation.

Since the 1990s, Chantal Mouffe has developed a model of agonistic democracy that emphasizes conflict and antagonism over reconciliation and consensus, while criticizing deliberative democracy theory. To summarize that position in one sentence: rather than deliberative democracy, which forms consensus through discussion, the essence and significance of democracy are found in the fact that such consensus-building always fails and opinions never reach a final agreement. From this standpoint, Mouffe criticized deliberative democracy for excluding the possibility of dissent in advance and erasing "pluralism" in politics.

The unique aspect of Mouffe's theory is that it views democracy as a conflict between "adversaries." An "adversary" is distinguished from the liberal notion of a "competitor," and also from an "enemy" to be destroyed. While an adversary is certainly a type of opponent, they are an opponent who fights with legitimacy and acknowledges the basic principles of liberal democracy. Therefore, democracy is a struggle between adversaries who have accepted the basic principles of liberal democracy. There, a certain consensus may be reached after conflict, but it is only a "temporary consequence of a certain provisional hegemony"—what might be called a "conflictual consensus"—an extremely unstable agreement that is constantly open to new struggles.

The outline of Mouffe's agonistic democracy is as described above. Nevertheless, in recent years, Mouffe has abandoned this position and has begun to actively develop left-wing populism. How should we think about this shift?

It is likely due to the following reasons. As terms like post-truth and fake news have attracted attention recently, it has become increasingly difficult for people to share information and discuss it while examining it together. In such a situation, the bottom has fallen out of the "deliberation vs. agonism" debate, and the very "space for speech" that should be the foundation of democracy has been lost. In these circumstances, it becomes essential to first reconstruct a public space for speech. Furthermore, under the recent hegemony of neoliberalism, more and more people are being forced into difficult economic situations. This is why Mouffe has temporarily set aside the position of agonistic democracy to propose a "left-wing populist strategy." Mouffe had long argued that criticizing centrist political lines (such as Tony Blair and Anthony Giddens' "Third Way") and reviving the left-right axis of conflict was essential to prevent people's affects from being mobilized by the far right and to radicalize democratic politics; however, that axis of conflict has now become "top vs. bottom." This is how Mouffe's theoretical change can be explained.

Now, let us grasp the key points of "For a Left Populism." The basic line of Mouffe's left-wing populist strategy is as follows: the neoliberal austerity policies promoted by the European Union and national governments have created a new rule by the few (oligarchy). The middle class has withered, the majority of people have been politically neutralized, and liberal democracy is now in a "post-democratic" situation. In this phase, the left must appeal to a populist strategy to unite forces against the vested interests (the establishment) and restore liberal democracy.

To list a few additional points, first, Mouffe positions her left-wing populism as "radical reformism." That is, it differs from "pure reformism," which accepts the current neoliberal status quo, and "revolutionism," which seeks a radical break. "Radical reformism" is said to seek a hegemonic formation to replace neoliberalism while accepting the principles of legitimacy of liberal democracy. To that extent, left-wing populism seems much more moderate than its name might suggest.

The second point is the re-evaluation of the nation-state as the stage for hegemonic struggle. According to Mouffe, the nation-state remains a crucially important space for democracy and popular sovereignty, and is "the place where a collective will should be constructed to resist the effects of post-democracy." However, this is presented not as following the right-wing identification of the nation, but as "mobilizing people toward patriotic identification, which is the best and more egalitarian aspect of national traditions" (p. 97). However, it seems undeniable that this direction, which could be called "strategic nationalism," carries the risk of being absorbed into right-wing xenophobia. For this reason, it is said to be in a subtle state of tension with movements like Yanis Varoufakis's DiEM25, which aims for international left-wing solidarity.

Third, Mouffe has long emphasized the role of passions in democracy, but in this book, that is developed by relying on Spinoza. According to this, the appeal of left-wing populism must be made not only through rational explanation but also in a way that provokes people's emotions and resonates with everyday feelings. As Spinoza stated, "An affect cannot be restrained or removed except by an opposing and stronger affect." This is the basic intuition of left-wing populism theory.

Fourth, let us also note that Mouffe is critical of lottocracy (sortition-based democracy), which has attracted attention in recent years. Mouffe criticizes lottocracy theorists for reducing representation to elections and failing to see that political parties and representative systems play an important role in making social antagonisms visible and in the "institutionalization of the agonistic dimension." Furthermore, since people form their identities through the discursive frameworks presented by political parties, representative systems are indispensable in politics. Therefore, "selection by lot, far from being a procedure to establish a better democracy, would promote the idea that politics consists in liberating individuals from the weight of constitutive social relations and respecting individual opinions" (p. 80).

Finally, it is also important that ecological issues will become a central issue of the left-wing populist strategy. Mouffe recognizes the importance of combining ecological issues with social issues, and this direction corresponds to the trends of the left in Europe today. According to Mouffe, "an ambitious and carefully planned ecological project has the potential to present an attractive vision of a future democratic society" (pp. 84-85). She also presents an optimistic outlook that if a left-wing populist strategy can be developed around this issue, it might even be possible to draw in sectors that are currently integrated into the neoliberal bloc.

Now, while left-wing populism seeks the restoration of democracy and fair redistribution of wealth, the reality of actual politics shows that it is facing a considerable struggle. First, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece, which gave a premonition of the dawn of the era of left-wing populism by taking power in 2015, lost the 2019 general election and fell to the second party. Similarly, Podemos in Spain, which made great strides in the 2015 general election, has not shown the same momentum as before, although it recently joined a coalition government. Furthermore, the British Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn, whose connection with the Momentum movement had attracted attention, suffered a crushing defeat to the Conservative Party in the late 2019 election, which is still fresh in memory.

In this way, left-wing populism has not succeeded in gaining people's support as successfully as its theory loudly proclaims. In some Western countries, far-right parties are gaining even more momentum, and left-wing populism has not been able to show as much presence as before. There are several possible reasons for this, but one to mention is that the vision presented by left-wing populism remains extremely "common sense." For example, in the previous UK election, while the Conservative Party campaigned around the clear but empty slogan "Get Brexit Done," Corbyn's Labour Party took a "neutral" position on the withdrawal issue. In other words, the Labour Party failed to show a sufficient alternative to the current administration.

However, while some tones mock the left-wing populist strategy with a "told you so" attitude following Corbyn's defeat, I should say there is another way to look at this. That is, what if the problem with the left-wing populist camp is not because it is left-wing populist, but because it "lost because it was not left-wing populist enough"? While more detailed analysis of election results in each country is required, it is somewhat premature to conclude that left-wing populism has become strategically invalid.

For the time being, how much support Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others can expand in the 2020 US presidential election is likely to be a watershed. In Japan, "Reiwa Shinsengumi," which won two seats in last year's House of Councillors election, is said to be close to the position of Western left-wing populism; I would like to watch its trends to see if it will expand its support further in the future.